I am an experienced online journalist and political editor working for Trinity Mirror papers in the West Midlands and the North East, based in the Parliamentary Press Gallery at Westminster.

I understand how government, Parliament and political parties work. I am equally at home digging out stories from data, social media or interviews as I am covering major set-piece events or explaining how things work to readers.

I produce content which is shareable and promote my work on social media.

My experience with content management systems and knowledge of HTML allows me to include charts, embedded content from third parties and formatting in my work, to create content which encourages interaction and keeps readers on the page.

They said councils “have found it very difficult to obtain information regarding many of the reforms” – even though they are supposed to be carrying them out.

And the authorities warned they were struggling to meet the cost of overseeing changes to the benefit system, including installing new computer software and training staff, at the same time as coping with cuts to their own budgets.

There are certain words I would like to ban, or at least to ban anyone from using without explaining exactly what they mean.

One of these is multiculturalism. A poll funded by former Tory treasurer Lord Ashcroft found that 90 per cent of voters believed “Britain has become a multicultural country”, and 70 per cent said they are “in favour of multiculturalism”.

One of Labour’s most senior MPs in the Midlands is at the centre of a major row with activists and union leaders after he refused to vote against the Government’s “workfare” plans in the Commons.

Liam Byrne

Liam Byrne (Lab Birmingham Hodge Hill), Labour’s Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary, has come under fire after the party instructed MPs to abstain in a vote on new laws designed to ensure that the Government can force unemployed people to take part in “back to work” programmes.

The House of Lords has endorsed the amendments added to the Crime and Courts Bill by the Commons last week - the measures that had caused some concern among bloggers that they might be caught up in press regulation (although, as I have argued, those concerns may not be justified in every case).

However, Justice Minister Lord McNally (Lib Dem) promised the Government would consider the concerns that had been raised, and might eventually bring forward amendments of its own to protect bloggers, once the Bill returns to the Commons.

Here is what he said in the House of Lords. I am quoting a long section of his speech, because I think people might want to know exactly where the Government is coming from, and he explains it pretty well. The promise he made is at the bottom, in italics.

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